Dave Hullfish Bailey

What's left to its own devices (On reclamation)

A multi-modal research project around ‘bottom-up’ constructions of public realms, physical and semantic. The project focused on 3 primary sites: the Weerdsluis, a catchment basin that collects, controls and drains water from the canal system of Utrecht; the iconic Rietveld-Schröder House (Utrecht, 1924); and a self-organized library built along the dike of the All-American Canal at ‘Slab City’ (a squatters’ camp in the California desert). Through cross-mapping and associative logics, the project makes experimental connections to ask speculative questions about connections between social, natural and informational orders. The project took 3 forms: an evolving, research-based exhibition; a participatory field-based workshop, and an artist’s book.